Jeff Wattrick: What are your thoughts on the NITC legislation? The Governor presented his case to the legislature, you guys came and presented your case. How did you feel that process went?

Matthew Moroun: Without just talking about the hearings, but all the build-up and conversations prior to that, I think basically the common political analysis is that the Governor’s bridge proposal is, at the end of the day, basically for all intents and purposes, the same political proposal for a bridge that Granholm had last year. It’s got a new name that even uses the word new in it, but that’s probably not enough camouflage to make it different enough for most people to not say: “It sounds a lot like last year.”

I think, for the post part, especially with the majority of the politicians, in this case they happen to be Republican but many Democrats as well, they’re skeptical of, can you really build a $2 billion bridge and is it really needed? And if we did it can we truly believe—despite what you put by edict in legislation—that the taxpayers won’t have to pay a dime for it. I think that’s basically where the skepticism and apprehension lies.

JW: Off the top of my head, I put together a list of people supporting the NITC project. You’ve got five former and current governors, the government of the city of Detroit, several local Chambers of Commerce, the Big 3, Canada, Amway, Brooks Patterson. There was a resolution in the Ohio legislature last year, it was a Republican majority…

MM: Sure, that was for the Granholm proposal.

JW: That was for the Granholm proposal, you’re right, but like you said…

MM: It’s the same thing, so maybe they’d support this one too.

JW: Sure. With all that going against you, why are you guys right and everyone else is wrong?

MM: First of all, I don’t look at it that way. That’s not the easy conclusion that I get out of that. The biggest problem with the government bridge proposal isn’t lack of requested and solicited support. Support isn’t what they need. What they need is a money commitment because, at the end of they day, they want to build a multi-billion dollar bridge where the tolls and traffic don’t support it. They’re going to have to end up going back to the taxpayers. What are they going to do when they go back to the taxpayer? Say but Chrysler supports it? Well, if Chrysler isn’t supporting it with money, or if the city of Detroit isn’t supporting it with money, what does their support mean? They need money to build a $2 billion bridge, not an endorsement.

JW: But, I mean, that’s a pretty diverse…

MM: Sure.

JW: I mean, you can’t put together a political coalition like that on many issues.

MM: So that you know, to be fair, many of the same—not all—because we haven’t run around soliciting their support nearly as hard as the government bridge proposal folks have, but many of the same folks have also supported any effort we make to build a bridge too. I think it would be going too far to say that everyone they put on a list is supporting the government bridge proposal is opposed to a private bridge proposal. Right? I think they’re supportive of a bridge proposal. That doesn’t mean all of them are, that just means it’s more than supposition because many of the same people support our efforts.

JW: Ok.

MM: But, we haven’t asked them for money. I don’t think they would give us any money. I don’t think they’d give the government bridge proposal any money. Building a bridge takes money.

JW: But to that end, isn’t Canada basically willing to pay the freight on that and get paid back whenever, however long it takes the tolls to pay them back?

MM: No. They aren’t because, like we’ve gone over the numbers, I mean if you just start with the basic numbers it’s a $2 billion bridge and Canada’s only offered to pay $500 million so…

JW: Of the Michigan share.

MM: Right, so you’ve got a billion and half to go.

JW: Right, but that billion and half wouldn’t come out of the Michigan share.

MM: Ok, let’s call it $750 million.

JW: But where do you get that $750 million? I guess, there’s a $2 billion bridge…

MM: Right, cut the $2 billion in half…

JW: Ok, $1 billion…MM: For each side.

JW: Ok, $1 billion for each side, Michigan’s share is of that $1 billion is $550 million. Canada is saying, Michigan here is your $550 million.

MM: Ok, but even under those numbers $1 billion is still more than $550 million, right?

MM: Well, yeah, I guess one of the things that we’ve never really talked about in the past because I’ve always thought it was the same thing, whether it’s an American taxpayer or a Michigan taxpayer, we haven’t drawn a distinction. But for those people who say, look we’ll build this thing off the backs of non-Michigan taxpayers, well, I don’t know, that depends on how much money you think you can squeeze out of the federal government right now. We’ve only done our numbers based on taxpayers in general. We haven’t isolated it to how much the government proposal could sap other Americans for.JW: Ok…

MM: Does that make sense? JW: Yeah, I mean…

MM: I mean some people could look at federal money as free and not count that in the proposal. We don’t. We counted that against them.JW: I guess the argument, I mean I’m not attempting to get you to agree with this because I know you’re not going to, but I guess my argument would be: Michigan is a donor state in terms of transportation dollars, this is arguably a project of national importance, it’s a reasonable place to put transportation money that’s coming in the door anyway.

MM: Well, I don’t know if it’s coming in the door. You know, being in the trucking business, I think it was last week that the House Chairman of [the] Transportation [Committee, John] Mica came out with a proposed six-year highway bill that I think slashed transportation spending by over 30%. I think all 50 states that are used to getting money from the federal government are going to see a whole lot less. I don’t know, if they want to take all of that, and put it all in a new bridge let the rest of the stuff go to heck, they probably could.

JW: All right, I don’t want to get too far into the weeds on that one.

JW: Political donations have been an issue that your critics have raised.

MM: Right.

JW: Some people saying they amount to bribes. I guess that’s kind of true of all big political donations, there’s access or influence attached to them.

What are your expectations for candidates that your family/your company supports?

MM: As a little bit of background on that, we’ve contributed a lot to political campaigns prior to the bridge issue becoming red hot. I plan on doing it after the bridge issue has cooled down, however it cools down.

We have a lot of operations throughout the state, a few thousand employees throughout the state. It’s important to our business that there are great political figures from Grand Rapids that represent business interests and positive economic interests as it is that there are in Traverse City and Detroit. So, we intend to continue to legally make political contributions to those folks that we feel are going to protect business interests and allow for business to grow.

Specific to the bridge issue, we’re not anxious to support politicians that support government takeovers. So that’s one type of scrutiny we might give before [making contributions].

JW: Are there any candidates you’ve supported who aren’t in favor of the second span?

MM: Sure. I can’t think of any off the top of my head but if you gave me a chance, I could give you a few names. There’s plenty of times on issues involving the bridge or without the bridge, you contribute money to someone’s campaign and they say exactly what you don’t want to happen. Well, that’s just proof that a campaign contribution is not what some people accuse them to be. They aren’t bribes. If they were bribes, everyone would do exactly what you wanted. That’s not the case.

AP PhotoMichigan Gov. Rick Snyder delivers his first State of the State address in Lansing, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011. He used the address to announce his support for what's now called the New International Trade Crossing.

JW: How would you describe your family/your company’s relationships with Governor Snyder and Governor Granholm, before they were elected and while they were in office?

MM: Before Snyder was running, I didn’t know him at all. In fact, if you asked me who was the owner of Gateway Computers, I wouldn’t have known. While he was running, very little relationship with him. I paid attention to the election, probably like you did. I think the first time I ever saw him—if I got the candidate right—I think he was having, a not necessarily a fundraiser, but a friendraiser last year at Mackinac. Like across the street from the Grand Hotel. I think I may have gone to that and said hello to him. I think my dad attended a few similar type events. We weren’t close to him. There wasn’t any animosity toward him, I thought he was a fine candidate.

JW: And Granholm?

MM: Granholm, we supported Granholm. I’m not sure—she ran twice—I can’t remember if we contributed to her Attorney General campaign or not, but I’m positive we contributed to her campaign for governor at least once, if not both times.

I thought she was a good lady, I thought she got the bridge issue wrong, and—bingo! There’s a perfect example of us contributing to a politician who didn’t agree with us. So there you go. I guess that was more obvious.

JW: How would you describe DIBC’s efforts to work with government agencies? I guess this is more toward things like the Gateway Project, things that have happened in the past. And how would you describe their efforts to work with you?

MM: If there’s not politics involved and there’s not an agenda involved, we do very well at getting along with a government department or entity that’s working with us. Whether it’s Customs and Border Protection, General Services Administration, City of Detroit, MDOT even, ATF, Transport Canada, Canadian Border Services Agency, Federal Highway and those are just some of the governmental entities that we have to deal with constantly. We do very well with them if there’s not an agenda.

I’m not trying to say that any of them are bad. They’re all fine people trying to do a good job. When there’s a distinct political agenda, and political agenda is going to flatten our company or damage it, then of course getting along doesn’t go very well and we might have a little bit of turmoil. Whether that agenda is from someone in the bureaucracy who believes that private bridges shouldn’t exist, well that person is hard for us to get along with. If that department believes whatever they can do to disadvantage the Ambassador Bridge will inure their own bridge development six blocks away, that person is hard to get along with.

But, for instance, if their objective is trying to protect our country and make sure the bad guys don’t get it, and they want the facilities to do it, that’s no problem. We’re going to work with them hand-in-hand. I’d say we have a very good relationship with Customs and Border Patrol and CBSA in Canada. Those are the primary government agencies we do business with because they have employees that work on our bridge everyday.

JW: Do you think the “government bridge” ads were effective? Were they what you had hoped they would be?

MM: It’s awful hard to fight city hall. If we don’t have a bully pulpit, the only way for us to get our message out and get the facts out about the dispute is to try to phone up people like you and say: “Here’s a story we really think you should run and here’s the facts.” If you feel that’s newsworthy, we might get some of it out that way, but that’s a pretty indirect and tortured way to make your case in the public.

It’s not as easy for us to hold a speech, say the State of the State. Right? I’m not sure they’d allow me to even do that.

JW: The Moroun response?

MM: Yeah, sounds good but I don’t think we’ve got a chance to be able to deliver a concept to the entire state legislature and have everyone watch it on tv and every news organization pick it up.

What we decided to do was take our case to the television and that’s what we did with the ads, to let people know this is a big issue, it does effect them and their wallet. We believe there are some politicians trying to sell them a bill of goods and it was important to let them know.[ED: This next question was prefaced with a statement about DIBC quoting the Windsor Square website in their ad campaigns. The quote I was thinking of came from actually came from “Toll Road News.” That was my mistake. The relationship between the website and DIBC remains relevant.]JW: There was a Windsor Star article a few years ago that said Ed Arditti of the Windsor Square had a very close relationship with DIBC. In fact, he refused to say if was or ever was on your payroll. Mr. Arditti has been a pretty stalwart supporter of you guys.

MM: Yeah, he agrees that government has no place in the bridge business.

JW: But he also has, according to the Windsor Star, a relationship with this company to the point where he wouldn’t answer a question as to whether he was on your payroll. Will you answer that question?

MM: Well, he’s not on our payroll.

JW: Was he ever on your payroll?

MM: No, he’s never been on our payroll. I’ve met him a few times. Other people in our organization have. He’s definitely aligned with the same ideology we have, especially in regards to the government getting involved in the bridge business.

MM: Yeah, that wasn’t our deal and it was—I don’t want to use the word stupid because maybe that’s offensive, but since I can’t think of another word, then maybe I’ll just use it.

JW: The other sort of buzzworthy thing that came out of their effort was Dick Morris saying Rick Snyder should “act like a Republican.” Was that a fair comment?

MM: You know, Dick Morris is a consultant for us. He’s a super smart guy when it comes to political consulting. At least, I think he is. But Dick has a whole outlook on politics that’s well beyond his relationship our company and I’m not going to answer for him on that.JW: But when you saw that quote, did you feel like that was…

MM: Well, I don’t think a good Democrat or a good Republican would be for the government bridge. So whether Governor Snyder is a good Republican or not doesn’t matter to me. I don’t think a good Republican or a good Democrat would be for the government bridge. I don’t think a bad Republican or a bad Democrat should be for the government bridge.

Tomorrow we will discuss the Gateway Project controversy and the Morouns’ stewardship of their Detroit properties. On Thursday, we wrap up with a discussion about the Moroun family’s public image and their legacy.